I figured it would take a year before the sharpness of said pangs would ease. Now that it’s been a year, I just wanted to confirm that’s what’s happened. Pangs have eased indeed. We’re comfortable in our new house and new location. I’m not as attached to the place yet, but I suppose that takes longer, to associate new memories with a new place. Really, I’m not sure I want to develop that level of attachment to place again, but I suppose it’s inevitable.

Here’s a handy chart from Entergy.

And here’s the detailed breakdown…

As one can see at a glance, we consumed about twice as much energy in January as we did in the month before or after.

I’m particularly happy to have this baseline data, because we are getting some insulation underneath our house Monday. As I mentioned in January, there was a study which looked at four different ways of insulating beneath raised homes right here at the Musician’s Village in New Orleans. After some nagging, I finally got Dr. Samuel V. Glass to send me a preview of the study, “Moisture Control in Insulated Raised Floors in Southern Louisiana.” Glass is a research scientist in the little-known field of “Building Moisture and Durability” at the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin. The authors are presenting the research at a conference in December so it’s still not public, but you can view a news-style summary.

The main concern most people in these parts have about insulating underneath relates to moisture accumulation in the warm months. Moisture can lead to termites and mold and other bad things. From what I got out of the study, I think the number one thing that can minimize moisture problems is to just not set one’s thermostat too low in the summer.

Other than that, they seemed to find rigid foam boards and closed-cell spray foam to be the best. We are going with the latter from GreenBean. Closed-cell is purported to be the most expensive option, at least in terms of materials; it is costing us just over $2,000. I think I can also file for some sort of tax break before the end of the year.

So we’ll see what our energy consumption is like over the next year and compare. I’ll get back to you in November 2011.

We walked from Sojourner Truth Community Center to Bayou St. John and back. Actually we had to turn back before we reached the bayou. I was worried I wouldn’t have folks back to Sojourner Truth in time for the main event, namely the Walk and Roll Louisiana Summit 2010. I was supposed to be on a panel at the summit titled “Building successes from the ground up: The legacy of walking and cycling advocacy in Louisiana.” But thankfully I was able to get one of my esteemed FOLC board members, namely Edgar Chase, to represent us.

See, I couldn’t stick around for Walk & Roll because I had a prior commitment. The second Saturday of the month is my book club. Don’t get me wrong, I think Walk & Roll was a fantastic event, and bike/ped issues are near and dear to my heart. But I’ve been going to this book club for almost ten years now. I’ve missed a few meetings here and there because of levee failures and the like, but as a rule I do my best to be there. Second Saturdays are sort of sacred to me.

Drawing boundaries like this is important to maintaining my sanity and my sense of balance. There are many needs in this community, and I try to do my part, but in order to stay happy and healthy I have to know where to draw the line, to say “sorry” and enjoy my personal pleasures as opposed to serving the elusive public good.

(As another example, I was recently asked to serve on some neighborhood committees. I was on the verge of saying yes when I remembered that in 2008 I essentially made a vow, to my wife and my daughter and myself, to limit my involvement to one organization only. I chose Friends of Lafitte Corridor and resigned from two other boards. It was a good decision, one I need to continue to honor, so instead of serving on one of those committees I made a counter-offer. I’m going to recruit someone else as a Greenway Liaison for Mid-City. I suspect there’s a FOLC member living in Mid-City who’d like to get more active with FOLC and/or MCNO. This might be the perfect opportunity for getting started. I’m hoping that this will be a way to expand the circle of neighborhood involvement for a net gain.)

So that’s what I did Saturday morning, and I’m glad I did. I really enjoyed talking about Ted Chiang’s Stories of Your Life and Others with my fellow club members. Even so, I felt slightly guilty about not being at Walk & Roll to show my support, and about not being home to help with chores and looking after my daughter, especially after being gone most of last week.

But only slightly.

Actually, that may have added to my enjoyment. I felt like I was getting away with something.

I’m still planning to write more about the trip to St. Louis, by the way.

Saturday night, Xy and I dropped Persephone off with a sitter and celebrated — I wasn’t sure exactly what we were celebrating, but we had a good time which included dinner at Crescent Pie & Sausage. It wasn’t until Sunday that I realized it has been a year and a day since we closed on our new house. I wonder when we will stop calling it “new”?

Roy’s twin sons are enrolled in Xy’s school. She’d seen Roy driving a cement mixer and asked if we could hire him to replace our driveway.

So that’s how Roy ended up at our house. He spent about thirty minutes looking at the work that needed to be done, asking questions occasionally but mostly just looking. I kept waiting for him to mention a price. Finally he said, “Yeah, I think I can do this.” And the price? No charge, except for the cost of the concrete.

What? Really?

Next weekend Roy showed up with a couple friends and a couple big sledgehammers. This was before the weather turned, mind, when just standing outside was enough to break a sweat.

Tearing up concrete the old-fashioned way in that heat seemed cruel and unusual. And don’t forget they were working for free. I felt obliged to swing the hammer myself a few times. Xy even got in the act. But we couldn’t compare to Roy’s friend who was over fifty but strong as an ox.

He was quite a character. Always cracking jokes, talking a mile a minute. I didn’t care for some of his racially-charged comments, but I gathered he’d spent some time in prison; as Xy noted, prison does not tend to cultivate our highest virtues.

They came back the next day with a jackhammer. I was stiff and sore enough from the previous day’s exertions that I gave up any pretense of trying to help. It took a while to finally get all the stuff torn out, but eventually they did it. It was not just the driveway that had to be removed but portions of the sidewalk as well.

The roots of the oak tree in front of our house had lifted up the sidewalk, breaking it up pretty badly in some places. I was able to take a picture of one of the the roots before the new concrete was poured.

We were never sure exactly when Roy and company would show up to do some more work. In other words, they were just like regular paid contractors. The key difference was that he’d usually bring his twin sons along, and Xy would end up playing babysitter for a few hours, and we’d feed them as well.

They got it framed up on the 17th of September and came to pour concrete on the 22nd — making for a memorable equinox. We also got the bill at this point, approximately $525 for the concrete. Xy insisted we give Roy some extra for all his hard work and out of pocket expenses, so I wrote a second check for $300.

But this story wasn’t over, not by a long shot. On the evening of the equinox, one of the twins remarked that the work wouldn’t go well because they “didn’t have any Mexicans.” I’m not sure if that was really the problem. I suspect it might have had more to do with the fact that they were working until well after dark without adequate lighting. In any case, there were problems. When the sun rose on the morning of the 23rd, it revealed workmanship that was somewhat less than ideal. Finished concrete is supposed to be sort of, you know, smooth. This was the opposite of that. The surface was rough and wavy with furrows in some places and lumps in others. Hillocks and valleys abounded. Xy tried to put a good face on it, taking an optimistic view for perhaps the first time in our 17 years of marriage. But even the neighbors were pointing and laughing. “That’s some funny stuff,” Charles said.

When Roy came back to remove the wooden frame pieces he took one look at it and said he’d have to tear it out and do it over.

What’s interesting is how quick the second job went. I really wanted to take a picture of the “funny” concrete but Roy tore it out before I got a chance. He brought a Bobcat this time. Howie and his wife suggested some sand should be put down; when I mentioned this to Roy he’d already arranged for sand to be poured. And before I could say “Terrytown” he was back with the cement mixer.

This time, with Mexicans.

The final product was much better. I don’t know if the credit goes to workers of Latino ethnicity, or the fact that the work was done in adequate light so they could see what they’re doing. In any event, I ‘m much happier with the result.

Roy never asked us for more money to cover that second load of concrete. Nor did he ever cash the check for the “extra” we tried to give him. In fact, Xy had to hand it to him three times before he took it. As I’ve related this story to friends and neighbors and co-workers, most have expressed amazement that Roy would do all this work for nothing. What’s his motivation? Perhaps he hopes Xy will give his son some extra scholastic help. Perhaps he knows teachers at Catholic schools don’t get paid much. I don’t really know. But having interacted with Roy a few times now, I suspect that he simply did this work out of the goodness of his heart.

Kind of amazing, isn’t it?

In any case, I didn’t sleep at all last night. I tried. Repeatedly. But I just couldn’t do it.

I don’t think I’ve pulled an all-nighter since that freaky Jazz Fest weekend five years ago.

(Wrong! Don’t forget that homebound all-nighter in 2008.)

To elaborate:

I’ve been off caffeine most of the summer, except for an occasional indulgence. At book club Saturday morning, I had two and a half tiny cups of extraordinarily strong coffee. But since it was before noon, I thought I was safe.

As for the physical exertion, that takes a bit more explaining. I’ll recount the essential facts without delving into the numerous bizarre details. As I mentioned a couple months ago, we need some work done on our driveway. A parent of one of Xy’s students offered to do the work — for free. This is amazing enough I hope to write more about it later. He and his crew got started yesterday, busting up the old concrete the old-fashioned way.

I felt obliged to go out and swing the sledgehammer with them, even though I’m not really in shape for that kind of work. We kept going until well after dark. I learned that sledgehammers make sparks when they strike concrete.

Between the caffeine and the exertion, I didn’t really seem to have much appetite, and so I didn’t eat much. I’ve found that having a snack before bedtime helps me get to sleep, so I planned to have a bowl of cereal, but we were out of soymilk, so I skipped it.

I’ve had many “sleepless” nights before, but that’s usually a figure of speech. Usually I drift off around four or so, or just after dawn. In this case, however, I really don’t think I slept at all. I got up several times during the night, to read, to eat a snack, to surf the web. I worked on my interface to the library of Babel, available (for now) at borges.rox. At 4:15 AM I left the house in my robe to investigate a car alarm. Each time I went back to bed and tried to go to sleep. But it just never took.

I have suffered from intermittent bouts of insomnia for as long as I can remember, but I do believe this was the worst ever. Certainly the worst since my daughter was born.

As I noted previously, the paint has worn away at a surprising rate. I suspect it’s an inferior paint or simply not enough coats. I’m pretty sure there’s a layer of lead-based paint beneath the latex, and we don’t want to be tracking lead-paint dust into our home.

Rummaging amongst the cans of paint that came with the house when we bought it nine months ago, I quickly found what looked to be a half-gallon of the right color. I took it to Helm Paint and had them whip up a batch to match.

But when I got started the next day, I discovered the color was a bit off. I painted a test patch with the new paint, then another with the old paint, and neither of them matched the porch color.

Then it dawned on me — this was the color of our stairs, not the porch. I’d grabbed the wrong can. Back to rummaging, I found a rusty quart can that seemed to fit the bill. It was hand-marked, “Moorglo Essex Green 09643.” This time I painted a test patch immediately.

Xy had the car so I had to rely Howie for a ride back to Helm. (Thanks for the lift, man.) They told me this was a standard color — French Quarter Green. I had no idea we were living so fancy.

I’ve been making good progress, but the heat has been challenging. I knew it would be hot this week. It’s August in New Orleans, after all. What I didn’t realize was that we’d be in the middle of a record-setting heat wave. Not only is it miserably hot and humid, it also hasn’t rained for a good long while. I told a friend who moved here last fall that he would find the summer weather very predictable with our clockwork thunderstorms. “You can practically set your watch by them,” I said, but this dry spell is making a liar of me. That’s been helpful for painting, I suppose, though I miss the afternoon cool-down a shower can provide. Now I find I’m hoping the rain will hold off for another day.

But damn, this heat. Instead of dodging thunderstorms, I’ve been dripping sweat into the paint. I don’t think I’ve ever sweated so much in my life. Ordinarily my shirt gets sweaty on the chest and armpits, but after an hour of work in this heat, the entire shirt is soaked — not a dry inch on it. I have to take frequent breaks, and at the end of the day I’m exhausted. But I’m happy to be getting an important job done.

• Attic infestation: We hear something scrabbling around up there from time to time, but we’re not sure exactly what it might be. I suspect squirrels.
• Floor repair: I can live with the waviness, but the floors seem to have deteriorated beneath our feet. Some places are spongy, others we can now see light coming up from below. (The house sits on piers.) I don’t know that we can afford to do much, but I’m hoping to get some estimates.
• Insulate underneath: Still waiting to learn the results of the research at Musicians Village so I can make an informed decision about which method to use.
• Fill underneath: I’m not certain but I think we may need to put some dirt or sand under the house to minimize water pooling.
• Lattice deck: It would be nice to have some lattice around the bottom of our deck. This would prevent toddlers going under the house from the back yard, and it might stop the raccoons from coming into the yard.
• Glaze windows: Mostly we have vinyl replacement windows but there are a few older wooden windows, and one or two sashes don’t seem to be properly glazed.
• Paint porch: Already paint is wearing away from the front porch, and there’s lead paint beneath the latex, so that needs another coat pronto. I guess maybe this will be an annual or biannual task.
• Remediate strips: Speaking of lead paint, there are two narrow (1″) strips of flaking lead-based paint on either side of the house. It’s not really an area where we hang out, but it needs to be addressed.
• Organize study: I still haven’t quite finished unpacking and settling in to my office space at home. That last little bit kills me.
• Bike shed: I don’t think a prefab job will do the trick. I probably need to hire someone to build a little lean-to in the back (or possibly on the side of the house) preferably on a slab. It needs to be big enough to accommodate two or three bikes.
• Entry space: If I could get the bike out of the house and into a shed, we’d be able to make getter use of the space next to our stairs. A coat rack might work well there.
• Window treatments: I’ve put up one set of blinds (2″ wooden) and one curtain (sheer, purple) in the girl’s room, but the rest of the house is bare. We have a couple newspapers taped up strategically in our bedroom. This might be an opportunity to inject a little excitement into the rather bland, er, I mean classy color scheme we inherited.
• Outdoor speakers: I’m constantly moving our Sony jambox from the kitchen to the deck and back again, while making sure the extension cord and wireless receiver don’t come unplugged. I fantasize about installing a set of speakers to the exterior.
• New couch: The futon couch in our living room isn’t cutting it.
• Futon stopper: Speaking of the futon, wherever it ends up, we need something to stop it from gouging into the wall.
• Tree trim: The tree in front of our house needs a trim. It’s way to tall for me to even think about doing it myself.
• Sidewalk repair: The sidewalk in front of our house is in sad shape, mostly from the tree roots. They have not only caused the sidewalk to crack and crumble into a wildly uneven and dangerous surface, they’ve also lifted the sidewalk up considerably. I’m not sure what a repaired sidewalk would even look like.
• More concrete: Our driveway consists of two narrow concrete strips, one for each tire. It’s hard to line our car wheels up properly, and it’s also hard to wheel the trash can down to the curb, so I’m thinking we’d do well to fill in the space between the strips.

One of the joys of home ownership is there’s always something to do. I plan to take a week off soon and tackle at least a few of these.

Some of my friends assumed this high bill was indicative of high energy costs here in Southeast Louisiana. I don’t know how we compare to other parts of the country, but I don’t think that’s the culprit.

Rather, it’s the amount of electricity used. We clocked almost 6,000 killowatt hours over the course of that month. That’s 174.9 kwh per day. I suppose it’s possible Entergy misread the meter, but let’s assume it’s accurate for now.

How could we possibly have consumed that much energy?

I suspect the problem is lack of insulation. We thought we were in pretty good shape because the house was insulated as part of the renovation. As the seller informed us:

The exterior walls of the house have R13 fiberglass insulation throughout the house. The second floor attic has R30. The lower attic (over the kitchen area) has R19, which was the heaviest insulation that would fit between the joists over that area….

All of the [vinyl] replacement windows (which includes most of the windows in the house) are double-glazed Low E, and Energy Star rated.

However, there’s no insulation underneath the house. Since it’s raised a few feet off the ground, that means plenty of air gets underneath there and when it’s cold you can definitely feel it.

It seems that insulating beneath raised houses in New Orleans presents special challenges. I found an interesting article about this, which outlines the four basic choices: fiberglass, rigid foam board, open-cell spray foam or closed-cell spray foam.

But the more I read the more daunting it looks. I was heartened to learn that a scientific study has been mounted right here in New Orleans, using the different methods to insulate underneath twelve houses in Musicians’ Village for twelve months. But after scouring the web I couldn’t find the final report, so I contacted the principal investigator (Sam Glass at the USDA FPS) and am waiting for a reply.

It’s all further complicated by the fact that our floor could use some repairs in a few places. I assume it would be best to address these repairs before adding insulation.

I don’t think this is something I’m going to tackle myself. There are just too many variables, too many things to screw up, and more work than I have time to accomplish, what with being a public school widower and a daddy.

Oh, the joys of home ownership.

All living things have to be removed from the house prior to fumigation, and relocated elsewhere for approximately 48 hours. (Actually that’s not true; indeed, the whole point of fumigation is to kill off some living things. I did not relocate the termites.) Also, all food has to be remove from the house, except stuff that is canned or otherwise “factory sealed.”

This is similar to evacuation and just as fun. In some ways it’s even more fun.

It’s spooky being inside a house all wrapped up — tarps filtering red light thru windows.

I feel like I’m in a Christo installation.

You’ve been clamoring for a photo of our new house. So, here it is. It was pumped full of poison gas when this was taken.

We spent two nights uptown with my boss. She and her husband were incredibly accommodating and gracious hosts.

After they took off the tarp they put this sign on the house while we waited for the poison gas to disperse:

An unanticipated side benefit to this whole ordeal — our daughter has finally been weaned.

Did I mention we have three cats and a rabbit? They handled the dislocation better than we did.

So we’re back in our home now, but the termites presumably are not.

A few more photos in this set.

Alas, when the flick was over and I turned in for the evening, I neglected to leave a trickle of water running, as I’d done Thursday night. This, despite the fact I knew we were still under a hard freeze warning, with potential record-breaking lows on the way. Sheer stupidity.

See, here in New Orleans many houses have pipes on the outside, exposed to the elements. You can get away with that here for years at a time.

Sure enough, when I woke up this morning, we had no water out the hot taps. The cold taps were working fine.

As I examined our plumbing with greater scrutiny, I concluded that most of our pipes are enclosed. The only place a couple feet of pipe are exposed is our hot water exchange.

Those short little blue pipes leading into and out of our tankless water heater are what froze overnight. By the afternoon they were thawed and appeared to be no worse for the wear.

I tried to pick up some pipe insulation, but the local stores were all sold out. So I improvised, and wrapped the pipes in some foam which I cut from a mattress pad. I secured the foam with garbage-bag twist-ties. I’m actually pretty happy with the result.

As I was driving around Mid-City looking for pipe insulation, I saw the fountain in front of Schoen Funeral Home on Canal Street had frozen quite beautifully.

It was quite striking. I only wish I’d had a better camera with me.

Meanwhile the Banks Street Bar is advertising that, indeed, they “Have Heat.”

Now we are bracing for round three tonight. It will be nice when things warm up next week.

Oh, as for The Big Chill? Not bad. Fun to watch. But I’m not sure I understand why it has such a rep. To watch the retrospective featurette, you’d think they invented the ensemble film. I’m not sure that’s the case. Maybe its success is simply a matter of generational resonance? I’ll have to quiz my boomer friends.